Hulu’s ‘Alice and Steve’ Is a Tonally Confused Revenge Comedy With Strong Performances

Flight of the Conchords’ Jemaine Clement and Spooks’ Nicola Walker team up in Hulu’s new comedy series that leans more towards bromance than romance. Produced by BBC Studios’ Clerkenwell Films, the team behind Baby Reindeer, Alice and Steve follows two fifty-something best friends who have been at the center of each other’s worlds for decades. Their bond is severely disrupted when the lonely Steve (Clement) sleeps with Alice’s (Walker) daughter Izzy (Yali Topol Margalith) and, driven by fear of being alone for the rest of his life, attempts to pursue a relationship with her. The series is written by Sophie Goodhart, known best for Hulu’s Rivals and Netflix’s Sex Education, so she’s no stranger to an outrageous sexual storyline. Yet while Alice and Steve is marketed as a revenge comedy, the series awkwardly asks the audience to accept it as a sentimental love story.

What Is ‘Alice and Steve’ About?

After deciding that her boyfriend Janis (Luca Kamleh-Chapman) has “borderline personality disorder,” Alice’s 26-year-old daughter, Izzy, moves back into the family’s chaotic home. Alice is now in her second marriage with the contrastingly quiet Daniel (Joel Fry), with whom she shares a teenage son, Dom (Tyrese Eaton-Dyce). Meanwhile, Alice’s friendship with Steve stretches back more than 30 years. The pair briefly dated but remain trapped in arrested development, both seemingly stuck in a previous decade, which makes them apathetic to the feelings of those around them.

Steve is consumed by sadness, though not in a particularly sympathetic way. Four years after his divorce, he still walks his ex-wife Nancy’s (Lou Sanders) French bulldog and remains so codependent that the dog accompanies him and Alice on a night out, accidentally ingesting cocaine in the process. Before that incident, Steve laments to Alice that he is alone, unloved, and without a family of his own. She encourages him to pursue a younger woman, and while Steve initially cringes, he eventually gives it a go, only to leave when he discovers his potential date “did not know the Bee Gees.” In hindsight, he should’ve taken that as a warning sign.

Despite Being Billed as a Comedy, ‘Alice and Steve’ Is Uncomfortable To Watch

Alice and Steve’s fundamental problem is that, beyond its provocative premise, the series never really seems to know what it wants to say. Rather than interrogating the situation or drawing any meaningful conclusions, it simply circles the controversy without ever taking it anywhere. The show’s marketing promises an escalating revenge comedy — one where the premise would be a momentary price to pay for five remaining episodes of slapstick farce as the friends attempt to ruin each other’s lives in increasingly absurd ways — but the series itself never delivers.

Because Alice and Steve never moves beyond its central premise, it becomes difficult to engage with anything else it is trying to do — which is disappointing, as the sharp and comedic dialogue suggests a stronger version of the show underneath. Rather than laughing at these intended jokes or following the necessary lighter elements, you end up trapped in the same arrested development as the characters themselves, unable to step outside their claustrophobic world. Pushing play begins to feel like consenting to being stuck inside this strange, emotionally stagnant, quasi-incestuous dynamic, with no real exit or narrative reckoning.

This isn’t helped by the series’ confused tone and temporal shifts. Steve and Izzy’s relationship moves at a rushed, uneven pace: one moment they’ve only just slept together, the next they’re getting married. The show jumps abruptly between these milestones, repeatedly asking the audience to sympathize with the relationship. Even the score, with its soft, romantic strings, seems to push the viewer towards accepting Steve and Izzy as a viable couple, as if the only obstacle were Alice herself.

Perhaps the series is trying to engage with questions of appropriateness and consent within age-gap relationships, which are constantly under scrutiny in both celebrity culture and public discourse. Izzy is clearly old enough to make her own decisions, which leaves Alice in an uncomfortable position with no real control, but Steve, as the older party, should know better. The result is a show that feels deliberately uncomfortable to watch. It may be aiming to be provocative, but that aspect never quite lands.

There’s a faint Thelma & Louise quality in the idea of Alice and Steve sticking together to the end, regardless of what has happened. However, if the intention was sentimentality or a celebration of friendship, it raises the question of why a rarely explored platonic male-female bond needs to be built around a man who has slept with both mother and daughter.

‘Alice and Steve’ Has a Great Cast but Seriously Underutilizes Jemaine Clement

Image via Hulu

There are glimmers of a different, more palatable show when Alice and Steve end up co-parenting her youngest son, Dom, after a drug-fueled house party. In these moments, they function almost as relaxed, capable parents, collecting him and offering grounded advice to the other teenagers panicking while high. They even help salvage Dom’s relationship with the anxious Rome (Eilidh Fisher), who is navigating their first relationship alongside family difficulties. While Alice talks Rome through it, Steve helps Dom make sense of the situation, emphasizing how well they work as a team. It almost feels as though their problems are stemming from the fact that they should’ve been the story’s central couple all along.

Despite the show’s awkward central storyline, Nicola Walker’s performance as Alice remains a saving grace. While the narrative seems intent on eliciting viewer sympathy for Steve, who is clinging to a misguided relationship, Alice’s anger brings a different kind of enjoyment. Throughout the romance, her disdain does not waver, and she repeatedly erupts in anger, throwing out some punchy zingers at Steve at the most inappropriate yet satisfying moments — enthusiastically outing him as a Woody Allen fan in front of Izzy’s very liberal Gen Z friends is a particular highlight. Walker plays Alice’s mess well, making her lifestyle and friendships worryingly believable, and her dynamic with Alice’s mother, Val, is another strong element of the series. Marcia Warren, best known for playing Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother in The Crown, delivers a string of hilariously inappropriate lines, including a gleeful aside to Steve: “You could do all three generations — how very French of you!”

However, Alice and Steve underutilizes Jemaine Clement. For many viewers, he’s the major draw, best known as part of the musical comedy duo Flight of the Conchords, which ran as an HBO series in 2007. Yet, as the weary, melancholic Steve, Clement doesn’t quite manage to keep you hooked. He’s ultimately a comedian, but is given an emotionally heavy storyline to carry, and his comedy is never really allowed to shine as expected. Instead, he’s left positioned as the (albeit pathetic) aggressor in the story, with little opportunity for the humor audiences would anticipate from him.

Alice and Steve depicts an interesting male-female friendship that, in another version of the show, could have been worth exploring in more depth. However, the premise of a 50-year-old man sleeping with his best friend’s 26-year-old daughter gets in the way of any real enjoyment. The script is strong, and Walker’s performance alone is worth watching, but if your preferences lean more “pipe and slippers,” this may not be the show for you. If you’re able to tune in for this series in the same way you might with Georgie and Mandy’s First Marriage — which arguably offers more jokes and a more conventional sitcom structure — you may get something out of Alice and Steve, but it still means sitting in an uncomfortable stew for the duration.

Alice and Steve is streaming now on Hulu.

Release Date

June 8, 2026

Network

Disney+

Directors

Tom Kingsley

Writers

Sophie Goodhart

Pros & Cons

• Nicola Walker plays Alice?s messy character well, making her lifestyle and friendships worryingly believable.
• Writer Sophie Goodhart’s dialogue is generally sharp and comedic
• Alice’s dynamic with her own mother, Val, is a strong element in the series.

• Jemaine Clement is a comedian, but is instead given an emotionally heavy storyline to carry, and his comedy is never really allowed to shine as expected
• Beyond its provocative premise, the series never really seems to know what it wants to say.
• As Alice and Steve never moves beyond its central premise, it becomes difficult to engage with anything else it is trying to do.
• The series jumps abruptly between relationship milestones, repeatedly asking the audience to sympathise with the relationship.